Archinect - News

Interdisciplinary stage designer Es Devlin fills Pitzhanger with giant mirrored planes

2019-09-25T16:15:00-04:00

In this new large-scale work...visitors are immersed within a vast chronological landscape mapping pivotal shifts in human perspective over 75 millennia...the locations and moments represent a personal and subjective cartography and have been chosen by Devlin and her studio team to invoke our collective memories/history and to provoke dialogue and debate.

The Es Devlin: Memory Palace exhibition, designed by Es Devlin, the famous interdisciplinary stage designer who was featured in the first season of Abstract, is an 18-meter-wide sculpture that fills the entire Pitzhanger Gallery space and is accompanied by mirrored planes that exaggerate its presence, creating a heightened user experience.

The name of the exhibition builds off of the mnemonic technique that situates memories within spatial locations in one's mind. Devlin identified areas where she believed human thought took significant shifts and has situated those moments into distinguishable fragments of cities and buildings. The intent is to present a three-dimensional evolution of human thought.

Netflix's Abstract Season 2 to profile Olafur Eliasson & Neri Oxman

2019-09-18T15:30:00-04:00

The new season of Abstract will launch globally on September 25th. The subjects featured in season 2 include:

Olafur Eliasson - the Icelandic-Danish artist known for his large scale immersive installations. He has used light, architecture, ecology, and digital design to challenge the assumptions many of us make about design and perception.

Neri Oxman - the Israeli-born artist, bio-sciences pioneer, architect, and MIT professor. She is known for her masterful ability to combine art and science in her creations.

Also featured will be toy designer Cas Holman, product designer Ian Spalter, and typeface designer Jonathan Hoefler.

Bordering on Art.

2018-01-08T12:45:00-05:00

The notion that the prototypes could qualify as conceptual art might seem somewhat far-fetched. They were designed to United States Customs and Border Protection specifications, built to withstand a 30-minute assault from sledgehammers to acetylene torches, and to be difficult to scale or tunnel beneath. Aesthetic considerations are largely secondary to brute strength, but, when viewed up close, the walls collectively have the undeniable majesty of minimalist sculpture.

Cadillac Ranch, Prada Marfa, The Gates from the Met and The Border Wall. As excessive, fantastical, dismal and maddening as that list may sound, it may be closer to reality than we would think. For artist, Christoph Büchel, the possibility that the expected role of the Border Wall proto-types and their contentious implications should be classified as art is a interesting turn of events. The artist’s hope is to have the prototypes declared a national monument under the Antiquities Act of 1906, which protects naturally, culturally, or scientifically significant sites and for better or worse, we could agree that their cultural signification of the current state of America is undeniable. What do you think? Are they worth saving and what should their story be?

Does architectural education "brainwash" students? Nikos A. Salingaros thinks so

2017-06-13T13:57:00-04:00

Recently I’ve come to the reluctant conclusion that architectural education does some very specific things to its students, and in remarkably short order: 1.) It disconnects them from their bodies....2.) It brainwashes them.

In a brief article on Common Edge, the University of Texas San Antonio's Dr. Nikos A. Salingaros lists five effects he's witnessed as a teacher on students, and they include disasociation from one's body, a certain brainwashing through abstraction, and an emphasis on insularity and novelty over the actual human experience of a building. As he notes:

Contemporary architecture is obsessed, to the point of arrogance, with “innovation.” But unless you’re trained to admire and revere it for its own sake (something architecture students are routinely taught), aggressive “novelty” often triggers negative reactions from everyone else: alarm, anxiety, even physio-psychological pain. Remember the poor Vitra firemen, unwitting victims of “cutting edge” architecture? That’s just the proverbial tip of the iceberg, as far as alienation and architecture are concerned. Once upon a time, shareable stories were embedded onto and into buildings. Today architects detach their stories and apply them inst...

The BIG Abstract; A conversation with Morgan Neville, Director/Producer of Abstract's Bjarke Ingels Documentary on Netflix

2017-02-16T19:16:00-05:00

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've already heard about Abstract, Netflix's incredible new documentary series on design. This week we're talking to Abstract's executive producer, Morgan Neville, who also directed the episodes featuring Bjarke Ingels and Christoph Niemann.

As one of the world's most groundbreaking and talented documentary filmmakers, there's a good chance you have already seen Morgan's work. If you haven't, a good place to start is "20 Feet from Stardom", his Academy Award-winning doc that takes a look at the fascinating lives of the often-overlooked backup singers. His documentary on Yo-Yo Ma, "The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and The Silk Road Ensemble", will be premiering on HBO in March. I'm particularly looking forward to his upcoming Mr. Rogers documentary that he mentions in our conversation.

Yes, Archinect Sessions makes a cameo in the episode, with a clip of us sharing some of Bjarke's harsh criticism from commenters in our forum.

Listen to episode ...

Watch "Ex of IN House," an unusual, compelling new video from Steven Holl

2017-01-24T12:43:00-05:00

Poetry, abstracted Venn diagrams of spheres, and a love for natural materials are just some of the components that go into this video from Steven Holl, who acts as a kind of a hyper-thoughtful Huell Howser as he explores a gorgeous new home parented primarily by concept. Entitled "Ex of IN House," the video explores the formulation, execution, and daily reality of a home built on a splendor of acreage in Rhinebeck, New York. Likening program to a bunch of bananas, Holl advocates for abstraction in the design process, explaining that with the concept of IN, "all space is sacred." With a soundtrack that seems to combine the plinkiness of Thomas Newman with the urgency of Clint Mansell, it's a bit of a wonder (click here to view).

How does an architect reflect the life of a city in an abstract skyscraper?

2016-07-06T12:46:00-04:00

Ole Scheeren wanted to meet his client's request for a skyscraper that would stand out in the already hyperbolic architecture of Bangkok primarily by designing something that wasn't trying so hard. Instead of going for a wild, crazy shape, Scheeren started by vertically extruding an abstract square.

However, as he notes in this CNN video, "Of course, this move exactly exemplifies the problem of the skyscraper. It is an abstract silhouette in a skyline that has no relationship to the city, and does not speak at all of the people that actually live in it or inhabit it. So I wanted to open up the new shaft of the tower and reveal the grain of its inhabitation. Through the usage of it, the people that will live in these three dimensional units will start to define the image of the building. The building will project the life of the people back to the city that gave it."

Watch the full video on CNN

Advanced geometry with Oyler Wu Collaborative's "The Cube"

2014-03-05T20:24:00-05:00

L.A. architectural practice Oyler Wu Collaborative designed "The Cube" from a fundamental notion: to challenge the spatial and geometric properties of the cube, a geometric form long regarded as a basic element for design, art, and science. Built for the 2013 Beijing Biennale, the sculpture transforms a solid idea into an abstract piece -- and just a really cool-looking installation that surely makes a nifty backdrop for picture-taking.

We'll let Oyler Wu explain the intricate details behind the project:

"The Cube was designed with the intention of challenging the perceptual reading of the volumetric object. Beginning with this iconic and basic geometry, the overall scheme is designed to maintain the clear presence of the six-sided object in space.

Closer inspection of the scheme, however, is intended to reveal a more nuanced and experiential spatial effect - one that moves beyond the object and offers a radically different reading. Approximately sixteen meters tall and constructed of ...

"drawing/space" by Emma McNally to show at “Abstract Drawing” exhibition in London’s Drawing Room

2013-10-25T18:02:00-04:00

London-based artist Emma McNally will be showing her "drawing/space" works in the "Abstract Drawing" exhibition at London's Drawing Room beginning February 20, 2014. Delving into the idea of abstraction in the drawing medium, "Abstract Drawing" will be curated by artist Richard Deacon, making it the Drawing Room's fourth artist-curated exhibition.

Even at first glance, McNally's silver-beaded wire sculptures and graphite drawings resemble constellations in the night sky or maps, while other paperfolding pieces look like geological forms. There's no doubt her interests in philosophy, science, and music influence the intuitive, cartographic quality of her work.

Excerpt from an interview with Luce Garrigues of Pasajes arquitectura, courtesy of Emma McNally:

"Born in 1969, Emma started to create art as a way to unfold her thoughts and reflections whilst studying for her MA in Political Philosophy at York. She describes her drawings as a visualisation of complex systems and as...